Fourteen Years After Her Daughter’s Death, a Mother Challenges the Dominican Republic’s Total Abortion Ban

Fourteen years after Rosa Herminia Hernández’s daughter died after doctors denied her cancer treatment because she was pregnant, the mother is fighting the Dominican Republic’s total abortion ban.

The legal challenge, filed June 17, calls on courts to permit abortion in three circumstances: when the pregnancy results from rape or incest, when the woman’s life is in danger, and when the fetus has fatal abnormalities.

The Dominican Republic is one of seven countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that criminalize abortion in every circumstance. A woman who ends a pregnancy can face two years in prison, and a doctor or midwife who performs an abortion can face anywhere from five to twenty.

Hernández’s daughter, Rosaura Almonte — known publicly as “Esperancita” to protect her identity — was 16 when she died of leukemia in 2012, after doctors delayed chemotherapy because she was pregnant despite her mother’s pleas for an exception.

“My daughter died because she was denied the medical care she needed. No other mother should have to go through this,” said Hernández in a statement.

Civil society and rights groups are supporting the challenge, among them, notably, two faith-based organizations: the Alianza Cristiana Dominicana (Dominican Christian Alliance) and Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir (Catholics for the Right to Decide).

For more than two decades, women’s groups, medical associations, and human rights advocates have pushed to add the three exceptions to the ban. President Luis Abinader and his Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) endorsed them during his 2020 campaign, but later promoted and signed a new criminal code in August 2025 that preserves the total ban, set to take effect August 3, 2026.

The code, Law 74-25, is the country’s first rewrite of its criminal law since 1884. On abortion, it keeps the total ban intact, criminalizing both the woman receiving the abortion and anyone who assists her.

Against that backdrop, attorney Patricia Santana Nina, who leads the case’s legal team, said the judicial route became necessary.

“Constitutional courts exist precisely for circumstances like these: when a legislative omission results in the violation of constitutional rights,” she told More to Her Story.

In plain terms, the case asks the court to decide whether the country’s total abortion ban violates the constitution and the Dominican Republic’s human rights obligations, including women’s rights to life, health, dignity, equality, and autonomy.

Santana Nina said her team was influenced by other Latin American countries, including Colombia and Mexico, where courts have expanded abortion access by ruling that existing bans violated constitutional rights.

In the Dominican Republic, her argument rests on the constitution’s own protections for dignity, equality, health, and proportionality. Those principles, she said, mean “the state cannot protect prenatal life in a way that completely disregards the fundamental rights of women and girls.”

The Catholic Church moved quickly to oppose the challenge. In a statement released two days after the hearing, the Dominican Episcopal Conference warned that an interpretive ruling recognizing the exceptions would be “a bold and high-risk action against the constitutional and institutional order,” arguing the court would be overriding both the legislature and the constitution it is meant to safeguard.

The bishops reaffirmed that “life must be protected from conception” and cast the case as a threat to national sovereignty and the family.

Catholicism is the dominant religion in the Dominican Republic, but opinion surveys have consistently shown most of the population supports the three exceptions. The divide, said Santana Nina, “is between the absolute criminalization and those who recognize that these are exceptional circumstances requiring compassion and medical judgment.”

“This case is ultimately about whether the Constitution permits the State to impose criminal punishment even in those most extreme and tragic situations.”

Hernández’s daughter is just one of many women and girls affected by the ban. In 2023, a rape survivor who had a spontaneous abortion was detained for more than ten days in inhumane conditions and without medical care. Government data shows 585 girls aged 11 to 14 became mothers in 2024, and nearly 700 rapes were reported between January and July 2025, with many more likely left unreported.

Eugenia Lopez Uribe, regional director for the Americas and the Caribbean at International Planned Parenthood Federation, noted the ban does not erase the need for abortion, only safe options for it, in a written statement to More to Her Story.

“A blanket ban does not eliminate the circumstances in which a person may need an abortion; it merely deepens inequalities,” she said, noting the wealthiest are often able to find and afford care abroad, while the most vulnerable face few — if any — safe options.

Even a favorable ruling would not resolve everything immediately, Santana Nina explained, because doctors still face a conflict between their duty to provide care and the fear of prosecution.

“Judicial recognition alone is not enough,” she told More to Her Story. “Effective implementation would require clinical protocols, professional training, public information, and institutional guidance for healthcare providers.”

The case, Santana Nina said, is part of a long and deeply personal struggle to ensure no woman or girl is forced to endure what Hernández’s daughter experienced.

The court has set no date for its decision, citing the case’s relevance, complexity, and national importance.